The Crimson Tide: A Novel

“No, but they told me to run along home like a good boy and get my degree. I’m not an M.D., you know. And there’s a shortage. So I had to come.”

“Same here; I had to come.” And Shotwell, for Estridge’s enlightenment, held a post-mortem over the premature decease of his promising military career.

“Too bad,” commented the latter. “It sure was exciting while it lasted–our mixing it in the great game. There’s pandemonium to pay in Russia, now;–I rather hated to leave… But it was either leave or be shot up. The Bolsheviki are impossible… Are you walking up town?”

They fell into step together.

“You’ll go back to the P. & S., I suppose,” ventured Shotwell.

“Yes. And you?”

“Oh, I’m already nailed down to the old oaken desk. Sharrow’s my boss, if you remember?”

“It must seem dull,” said Estridge sympathetically.

“Rotten dull.”

“You don’t mean business too, do you?”

“Yes, that’s also on the bum… I did contrive to sell a small house the other day–and blew myself to this overcoat.”

“Is that so unusual?” asked Estridge, smiling,“–to sell a house in town?”

“Yes, it’s a miracle in these days. Tell me, Jack, how did you get on in Russia?”

“Too many Reds. We couldn’t do much. They’ve got it in for everybody except themselves.”

“The socialists?”

“Not the social revolutionists. I’m talking about the Reds.”

“Didn’t they make the revolution?”

“They did not.”

“Well, who are the Reds, and what is it they want?”

“They want to set the world on fire. Then they want to murder and rob everybody with any education. Then they plan to start things from the stone age again. They want loot and blood. That’s really all they want. Their object is to annihilate civilisation by exterminating the civilised. They desire to start all over from first principles–without possessing any–and turn the murderous survivors of the human massacre into one vast, international pack of wolves. And they’re beginning to do it in Russia.”

“A pleasant programme,” remarked Shotwell. “No wonder you beat it, Jack. I recently met a woman who had just arrived from Russia. They murdered her best friend–one of the little Grand Duchesses. She simply can’t talk about it.”

“That was a beastly business,” nodded Estridge. “I happen to know a little about it.”

“Were you in that district?”

“Well, no,–not when that thing happened. But some little time before the Bolsheviki murdered the Imperial family I had occasion to escort an American girl to the convent where they were held under detention… An exceedingly pretty girl,” he added absently. “She was once companion to one of the murdered Imperial children.”

Shotwell glanced up quickly: “Her name, by any chance, doesn’t happen to be Palla Dumont?”

“Why, yes. Do you know her?”

“I sold her that house I was telling you about. Do you know her well, Jack?”

Estridge smiled. “Yes and no. Perhaps I know her better than she suspects.”

Shotwell laughed, recollecting his friend’s inclination for analysing character and his belief in his ability to do so.

“Same old scientific vivisectionist!” he said. “So you’ve been dissecting Palla Dumont, have you?”

“Certainly. She’s a type.”

“A charming one,” added Shotwell.

“Oh, very.”

“But you don’t know her well–outside of having mentally vivisected her?”

Estridge laughed: “Palla Dumont and I have been through some rather hair-raising scrapes together. And I’ll admit right now that she possesses all kinds of courage–perhaps too many kinds.”

“How do you mean?”

“She has the courage of her convictions and her convictions, sometimes, don’t amount to much.”

“Go on and cut her up,” said Shotwell, sarcastically.

“That’s the only fault I find with Palla Dumont,” explained the other.

“I thought you said she was a type?”

“She is,–the type of unmarried woman who continually develops too much pep for her brain to properly take care of.”

“You mean you consider Palla Dumont neurotic?”

“No. Nothing abnormal. Perhaps super-normal–pathologically speaking. Bodily health is fine. But over-secretion of ardent energy sometimes disturbs one’s mental equilibrium. The result, in a crisis, is likely to result in extravagant behavior. Martyrs are made of such stuff, for example.”

“You think her a visionary?”

“Well, her reason and her emotions sometimes become rather badly entangled, I fancy.”

“Don’t everybody’s?”

“At intervals. Then the thing to do is to keep perfectly cool till the fit is over.”

“So you think her impulsive?”

“Well, I should say so!” smiled Estridge. “Of course I mean nicely impulsive–even nobly impulsive… But that won’t help her. Impulse never helped anybody. It’s a spoke in the wheel–a stumbling block–a stick to trip anybody… Particularly a girl… And Palla Dumont mistakes impulse for logic. She honestly thinks that she reasons.” He smiled to himself: “A disturbingly pretty girl,” he murmured, “with a tender heart … which seems to do all her thinking for her… How well do you know her, Jim?”

“Not well. But I’m going to, I hope.”